This application relates generally to social networking systems and, in particular, to distributing information about actions taken by other social networking system users based on connections between those users.
Social networks, or social utilities that track and enable connections between users (including people, businesses, and other entities), have become prevalent in recent years. In particular, a social network system allows users to more efficiently communicate information relevant to other users of the social networking system to which they are connected. Typically, social networking systems include a system for maintaining connections among their users and a system for identifying content likely to be relevant to their users. Social networks also collect and maintain information about the users of the social network. This information may be static, such as geographic location, employer, job type, age, music preferences, interests, and a variety of other attributes, or it may be dynamic, such as tracking a user's actions within the social network. The social networking system may notify a user of information about other users connected to the user.
A social networking system may use the connections among its users to identify information most likely to be of interests to different users in view of the users' stated, or inferred, interest in other users to whom they are connected (“connections”). For example, the social networking system may group users according to one or more common attributes in their profiles, such as geographic location, employer, job type, age, music preferences, interests, or other attributes. Social networking system users, or external entities, may use these groups to customize or target information delivery so that different groups receive information likely of interest to them.
Advertisers have attempted to leverage social networking systems' information about users by targeting their advertisements (“ads”) to social networking system users whose interests best align with the ads. For example, an advertiser may compensate a social networking system for displaying a banner ad for a concert to its users having an affinity for the performing band in their user profiles. However, these types of ads are devoid of context about other information presented to the user by the social networking website, although the context in which an ad is presented may affect its effectiveness. For example, an ad may be more effective if displayed alongside other non-ad information, while being less effective if displayed alongside other ad information. However, existing social networking do not provide robust mechanisms for controlling the context in which an ad appears on a web page presented by the social networking system.